Buddha wasn't "Buddhist." What was he?

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

On the left is not the Buddha but Mahavira. The Buddha is on the right. That's how alike they are.

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Jain wandering ascetic nun, 20th century

The historical Buddha, the former Prince Siddhartha Gautama, the Sage of the Scythians, was not only called the "Buddha" at the time. He had many epithets and monikers, the Tathagata, Mahavira, Bhagwan, Bhante, Sramana, and so on ("Wayfarer," "Thus Come One," "Well Gone One," "Great Hero," "Venerable," "Wandering Ascetic," etc.).

He was all of these and more, but The Buddha or "The Awakened One" stuck, and the name of the Dharma (Doctrine) he taught came to be called "Awakenism" (Buddh-ism).

In his day, however, he was referred to as a Karmavadin, a "teacher of the efficacy of intentional actions," a person who taught action/karma. (He was certainly NOT a "Hindu," as Hinduism or "Indus-ism," had not yet been invented or coined by British Orientalists working in British India (part of East India Company or Brittania/British Empire or the Realm).

There were previous buddhas.

There was not even an "India" yet. What there was was a Great Bharat, Brahmanism, the ancient Vedas, all of which modern Hinduism claims as its own. The Buddha, however, and therefore Buddhism's various schools, remember previous samma-sam-buddhas, or Supremely Enlightened Teachers, extending back aeons or kalpas, which is a term that varies in meaning from ordinary lifespan of a person to incalculable periods of geologic time. So the Buddha-Dharma or Teaching of these extraordinary beings on earth and in other galaxies did not begin with the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, the muni or sage/mendicant of the Indo-Sakas/Shakyas or Scythians of the northwest frontier region of old Gandhara in Central Asia, next to what would later become India under the unifying influence of the Buddhist Emperor Ashoka, who converted to Buddhism and gave up war and killing and conquest by force, instead choosing to be a kind of legendary chakravartin world-monarch, the "world" being the known world of the Rose Apple Land (Jambudvipa) or this planet in the sea of space, this (sub)continent, this extent of land surrounded by sea as far as ancient cartographers yet knew.

In an ultimate sense, Buddhism teaches that there is no "soul" (self, atman, essence), but in a conventional sense, of course there is one, and the Buddha taught the nature of it in exacting detail. That is how he came to know its ultimate nature as impersonal, empty, impermanent, and unsatisfactory. Those without understanding will become very confused and misguided. Distinguish ultimate from conventional truth at all times (Jainism).

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Jain shape of the universe

He made such a big deal about the importance of what we allow ourselves think, say, and do -- our deeds of mind, speech, and body -- that he was called a Teacher of Karma. Karma was not taken for granted and many of us seem to think today. Some seers (rishis) knew that beings died and were reborn in accordance with their deeds, but this was not clearly understood or taught by other teachers.

Mahavira (the Nigantha Nataputta or Vardhamana) was the founder of Jainism (Jina Dharma) -- the only other surviving wandering ascetic (sramana) tradition from proto-India, the other five popular ones having gone extinct.

The Buddha explained the unfathomable working out of karma (deeds and their results), making generalizations and rules of thumb about what is, in fact, an imponderable subject. What is important is that all that we do comes back to us. It is not lost unless and until we make the ground of ripening infertile by our awakening.

This has led to many Points of Controversy, such as...